Count Facilities and Examine Whether People Can Use Them
A toilet inventory does not show whether people can enter, use, clean or maintain the facilities safely and with dignity. Hygiene messages cannot overcome missing water or unusable facilities by themselves. Examine the service, its management and different users' experience rather than turning a count into a universal adequacy ratio. Sphere 2018, WASH hygiene-promotion standard 1.1 and excreta-management standards 3.2-3.3, addresses use and management. The GPC WASH Tips, edition 1, May 2014, includes privacy, safety and meaningful-access questions. The investigation below is original practice, not a sanitation design or certified compliance check.
A Fictional Settlement Snapshot
Continue the invented Riverbend flood exercise. A general team safely observes six toilet cubicle doors in one block during a daytime visit: four are open and two locked. One open cubicle's privacy latch appears broken. No handwashing water is available at the nearby station during the visit. The team does not enter damaged infrastructure or inspect pits, wastewater or disposal systems. Night-time access and maintenance arrangements remain unknown.
The defensible initial record is six observed cubicles, four with open doors at the visit, a reported/observed privacy problem and no water at one handwashing station at that time. It is not six usable toilets, four safe toilets or proof of daily handwashing access. Opening a locked door alone would not verify the complete service.
Build a Usability and Responsibility Matrix
| Dimension | What to Establish | Responsible Handoff |
|---|---|---|
| Location and access | Who can reach and enter, at which times, and who is not represented in the visit/discussion? | WASH/access and protection roles work with relevant users; no generic distance alone certifies access |
| Privacy and dignity | Do arrangements fit users' actual needs and preferences, including changing/washing/disposal needs? | Facility and protection roles check the broken latch and appropriate contextual arrangements rather than impose one design everywhere |
| Water and materials | Is the required water, soap and other relevant material available when people need it? | WASH owner checks the system and replenishment, not merely whether a poster exists |
| Technical sanitation chain | What contains, collects, transports, treats or disposes of waste, and what has flooding changed? | Qualified sanitation/environmental roles assess the chain and worker safety; general staff do not open pits or prescribe engineering works |
| Cleaning and maintenance | Who has accepted responsibility, resources, tools and an actual reporting route? | Named operator/management owner confirms capacity, safe procedures and response to failures |
| Information and concerns | Can users understand arrangements and report a problem without exposing themselves? | Community/accountability roles establish an accessible, safe route and actual feedback response |
Use direct safe observation alongside voluntary, appropriate discussions. Include people with different mobility, sensory and communication needs and those who avoid the facility. Do not request detailed experiences of abuse, diagnoses or intimate practices in a public group. Ask qualified protection/health roles how to handle sensitive issues through established procedures.
Compare Actions That Address Different Problems
An information session may explain how to report a fault, but it cannot create the missing water. Repairing the latch may improve privacy, but still leaves access and sanitation-chain questions. Replenishing supplies without an accepted maintenance owner may provide only a brief improvement. A new facility may be inappropriate if its management, flood conditions, user preferences or safe disposal are unresolved.
The response team should identify urgent concerns and assign proportionate permitted action to actual qualified owners. It should not wait for every matrix cell before using an established emergency procedure. Record which proposed measure addresses which barrier, what evidence supports it, the decision and the next check. This page supplies no pit dimension, siting separation, desludging procedure, protective-equipment prescription or universal people-to-toilet ratio.
Recheck Use, Not Just Completion of Work
After a verified repair or supply change, ask whether intended users can actually use the service at the relevant times and whether new barriers appeared. Keep a dated record of the technical work, operator confirmation and user feedback, with each source's limits. A completed work order and a satisfied user report are valuable but different forms of evidence.
Connect findings to water-service disruption and reliable water access where systems interact. Preserve the WASH page's qualified technical/public-health boundaries. No disease diagnosis, safe-water finding, infrastructure clearance or guarantee of protection follows from this general assessment exercise.